de Kooning

Okay, it's October 29, the World Series ended last night, and, it is snowing outside. Not snowing like a couple of flakes: snowing like a mini-blizzard. This should never happen. But, here are several good reasons to rejoice despite this insanity:

1. Feist and her new record, Metals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zf8Tyda_QU

2. Case Histories on Masterpiece Mystery on PBS, with Kate Atkinson's Edinburgh private detective Jackson Brodie, its actors and its music. Episode 3, Sun. Oct 30. Catch up here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/watch/index.html

3. The de Kooning show at MOMA, especially the later abstracts.

Lisbon & Jane

4. The Mentalist on CBS, Thursdays at 10PM (or, whenever, wherever). Forget the plots, even Red John; it's all about the slowly simmering affair between Patrick and Lisbon.

5. Cider donuts from  Plasko's Farm, Trumbull, CT! Available at the Greenwich Farmers' Market, Saturday's beginning 9:30 AM, Corner: Arch & Horseneck. Get there early, but they won't sell you any donuts (or fingerlings, or arugula) before 9:30 AM.

6. Fage non-fat Greek Yogurt with honey and Bare Naked's original Peak granola. The Greeks may be the only ones more broke than we are, but they are very healthy. See why they are (we mean besides having 3 mos. paid vacation from not-so-hard jobs).

7. Lucinda Williams and her old record, Essence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Kd3Y-anRlM

Mysterious Bookshop

8. The original series of Swedish police procedurals, featuring Martin Beck. These were partially based upon the 87th Precinct novels of Ed McBain (Evan Hunter). They appeared from 1965-1975, and, whether they admit it or not, all the new Scandinavian mystery writers owe at least a nod Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Buy one at Mysterious Bookshop, 58 Warren St., Tribeca. We recommend The Laughing Policeman. 


9. John Le Carre's Smiley novels, especially Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honourable Schoolboy: Smiley's People. Alec Guiness played Smiley in the BBC Series, there is a new feature film of T,T,S,S coming in December, and PBS's Masterpiece Contemporary begins showing the Le Carre'-like series, Page Eight, sometime in November. For spy buffs, Smiley is the motherlode.

Cardinals

10. The St. Louis Cardinals. It pains me as a loyal Giants and Yankee fan to write that. This is the Series that the northeast largely ignored. The Times didn't even bother reporting the Series' games until it was all over (too busy becoming Berkeley Barb II). Twice the Cards came back from the brink, two runs down and one strike left in the ninth and the tenth innings  in Game Six, before winning it in the eleventh. In that tenth inning, that two-out, two strike single was hit by Lance Berkman, comeback player of the year in the National League. Last October, overweight and not playing much, he had to sit and stare at the field after his last game in 2010, playing for the Yankees, against...the Texas Rangers! You simply cannot make that up. Baseball is the best game; we always have one last strike, there is no clock, and dramatic things do happen, amazing things can happen; we must veneer give up.